July 2022 Car Rental Thread

[Tigger1965]

I don't see a July thread for car rentals and the rates seem sky high right now. We are heading to Florida via Tampa on July 4th for 11 days. Does anyone have any discount codes or special rates they would like to share?

 

[jcourtney]

Following. We booked a rental through Costco back in the Fall. $600 for 11 days Intermediate Car. I would love to bring that price down some but the rates posted now are ridiculous!!

 

[Tigger1965]

Following. We booked a rental through Costco back in the Fall. $600 for 11 days Intermediate Car. I would love to bring that price down some but the rates posted now are ridiculous!!

Doesn't seem to be much chatter out there on this topic. I guess I am stuck with $740 (CAD) through Expedia July 4th to 15th which I booked about a month ago (after several times booking, cancelling, and rebooking....I started at $980). Prices have only seemed to go up since then. I have checked Costco, Budget, Alamo, and Expedia regularly with nothing better.

 

[Yankees2003]

Not having much luck here either…I thought with gas prices so high people would not be renting as much so prices would drop..guess I was wrong. We need a car end of July for Anaheim and looking at 600 for five days. Is it normal now for them to charge a fee to make any changes or cancellations?

 

[Tigger1965]

I always book with free cancellation and pay at counter so I have maximum flexibility. Often a lower price will turn up making this choice pay off. However if you book with pay now and unrefundable rate, you cannot change it obviously but the rate is usually about $50 less than the pay at the counter rate. So it's hard to know what to do sometimes.

 

[Karpag]

I am a Costco member, but can't find my code not working. Anyone have a code to confirm I am using right one?

 

[Donald Duck888]

I was wondering if anyone had any info on one way rentals. Did this a couple years back and it worked pretty well, flew down and then drove back. When looking for this year’s trip however it appears there is virtually no availability to do this. Do they just not want to lose the cars to another market or is there some other reason?

 

[Laurieannc]

We have only done one way rentals. In the past we have always used National and used their Emerald Isle system where you book in advance and just pick the car out of their available ones in the lot upon arrival. Since the return at the Dolphin has not opened back up, we return to the Car Care Center and have a shuttle drop us back to hotel. We usually do a single day rental for the best pricing, but depending on your flight time that might not matter. This year, I have found better pricing at Alamo and Enterprise. When trying to book, make sure you put in return to different location. Use Lake Buena Vista as the return on their main screen. Then when you advance to the next page, the Car Care Center should show up as the return location. Choose that and then book as usual. Be warned-pricing has been significantly higher than I have ever seen.

 

[Laurieannc]

@Donald Duck888 I just realized you weren't looking to get to your resort. Disregard previous response! LOL

 

[lynnfitz]

We're at the end of July for 12 days, Alamo is still hovering around $1,000 for standard size. Haven't booked yet, would like to see it at least dip below the $1,000 mark! I did see it go to $980, but the bounced back up! Remember the good old days with coupons, lol! I would have re-booked several times by now!

 

[Tigger1965]

I'm currently down to $600 CAD ($468 USD) with Thrifty out of Tampa for 11 days July 4th to the 11th. This is one of the cheapest prices I've seen with one of the big companies and booked it just 2 days ago through Expedia. I can get Fox for cheaper but I'm not as familiar with them and they are not open 24 hours so for the sake of an $80 difference, I booked with Thrifty.

 

[keishashadow]

Dollar has been offering prepaid manager special rates for compact or ? on their website for my 10 day period starting middle of next week thru 1st week of July. $288

i need larger vehicle as driving to Tampa & backduring trip or I’d have jumped. Still mulling it over. Dread waiting in line to pickup Too.

 

[TriSeb°o°]

My (First Week of) July dates (8 days) dropped $300 so made another Alamo ressie. I used Autoslash which sent me a Priceline link.

 

[kittylady1972]

Got my July 24th - July 28th rental down to $384 for a mid-size booking direct with Thrifty. This is the first time I've been able to get it under $400 without prepaying. With the way flights are going right now, and the potential for a cancellation, I'm not willing to risk doing a pre-pay that doesn't let me cancel. I know what a nightmare it was when I flew in December of last year and my return home flight got cancelled and I kept the car for an extra day. I could never get in touch with anybody from the company to do a courtesy extension so I had to pay the extra time PLUS the fees which sucked as I know they would normally extend without a fee due to those circumstances.

Still hoping to get closer to $300 but doing daily stalking of various travel sites and individual companies hasn't given me any luck yet.

I'm only willing to do the major companies on site and not risking any of those smaller companies (Fox,Ace,etc.) and of course would prefer to go directly through the company using my company rewards membership so I can avoid waiting at the MCO counter. Though I will say last month we booked via UT, adding a movie ticket then pre-paying for the rental through Avis and that counter experience was fine. The time I had to go to the Budget counter after booking via Priceline....NIGHTMARE...NEVER AGAIN!

 

[Swimmergirl]

Check those rental car rates! My Thrifty rental direct off their website has dropped about $50 the past week or two!

 

[Karpag]

Got my July 24th - July 28th rental down to $384 for a mid-size booking direct with Thrifty. This is the first time I've been able to get it under $400 without prepaying. With the way flights are going right now, and the potential for a cancellation, I'm not willing to risk doing a pre-pay that doesn't let me cancel. I know what a nightmare it was when I flew in December of last year and my return home flight got cancelled and I kept the car for an extra day. I could never get in touch with anybody from the company to do a courtesy extension so I had to pay the extra time PLUS the fees which sucked as I know they would normally extend without a fee due to those circumstances.

Still hoping to get closer to $300 but doing daily stalking of various travel sites and individual companies hasn't given me any luck yet.

I'm only willing to do the major companies on site and not risking any of those smaller companies (Fox,Ace,etc.) and of course would prefer to go directly through the company using my company rewards membership so I can avoid waiting at the MCO counter. Though I will say last month we booked via UT, adding a movie ticket then pre-paying for the rental through Avis and that counter experience was fine. The time I had to go to the Budget counter after booking via Priceline....NIGHTMARE...NEVER AGAIN!

HI, do you have any promo or discount codes for Thrifty?

 

[kittylady1972]

HI, do you have any promo or discount codes for Thrifty?

Unfortunately nope. I've done this directly either via Priceline or Thrifty.

 

[Pembo]

Not sure about MCO but my rental at Tampa dropped again today. 7/23-30 Stand SUV Budget $404 Costco code